Follow hand.”
Then she sprung through the keyhole, and in another instant her wand was seen following her.
“Drop it now, my darling!” exclaimed the Queen. “Let her take her wand, if she’ll only take herself off, too!”
All this time the wand was passing through the keyhole. Less and less of it was left in sight. Now not more than an inch; now not half an inch; now the tips of the Prince’s fingers seemed sucked up towards the keyhole.
“Drop it,” cried the Queen, “why don’t you drop it?”
“Oh, mother, mother!” screamed the struggling, breathless boy, in an agony of terror, “I can’t, I CAN’T; it has grown to my fingers; it sticks to them! Oh dear! dear! what shall I do? my fingers are being dragged through the keyhole! they are being stretched into strings! Oh help me! help me!”
The Queen rushed to the door, before which her son was kicking and writhing. But his efforts to escape were fruitless. To her horror, the Queen beheld each joint tapering and elongating itself, till it could pass through the narrow aperture; now, the wrists had disappeared; now, in a twinkling, the elbows were out of sight; now the upper portion of the arm was gone.
“Surely,” thought Ninnilinda, “she will never attempt to drag his head through.” But she was wrong; the boy’s hair was rapidly sucked through the keyhole, and the head began to lengthen itself out for the purpose of following.
This was too much for endurance. The Queen strove with all her power to open the door; but it was as fast as if it formed part of the original wall. Then, in her dismay, she seized hold of the body of the Prince, for the purpose of dragging him back; but a miserable, elongated drawl from the other side of the door conveyed the boy’s entreaty that she would not hurt him.
“Never mind what he says, niece,” cried the voice of the Fairy. “Hold his legs tight, and in half a minute I shall have finished my work, and wound him up!”